Storm Chasers and Light Bringers
by Serein and Petrichor
Summary: Assemble the ponies! The ponies of Equestria must battle a new evil...one sent from the human world!
1. Chapter 1

Anya stood shaking slightly in the centre of the vast arena. In front of her stood the tall, domineering figure of a "Dummy" Nova-Droid, code named the Novad. It stood about seventy feet tall, and fifty feet wide at the top, about fourteen times the size of the small, silver furred Pegasus at its base. Anya gulped in fear as the Novad turned its huge armoured head to stare down at her. The Novad had no arms or legs, and looked more like an upside down triangle with the exception of its circular, turret like head on the top, with two yellow beacon-like eyes. Although the machine looked as though it couldn't do much in the way of harm, Anya knew by now not to underestimate the Novad species, as the segments on its armoured chest could open to reveal all sorts of weaponry, and those beacon like eyes could shoot beams of high intensity energy when the Novad was of one of the newer models. All models could rotate their heads a full 360 degrees to maintain a constant vigil against attack. The difficulty was determining which model Novad was which, as other than abilities, the Novad all looked the same, from colour to shape. Even the sound of each model was the same, a low, almost guttural whir that had come to strike fear into the hearts and souls of the Equestrian ponies.

The Novad seemed to be emitting a kind of cold that chilled Anya to her bones. The only sound it made was a soft whir, which made the young Pegasus uneasy, so when Anyas' wings unfolded outwards, she did so quietly, and she flexed them softly, so that not even the light scattering of sand on the arena floor noticed the sudden breeze. Her wings flapped a little, and the sand began to skim along the floor. As soon as her stream-lined body was off the ground, her silver body began to glow gently, and she began to climb higher into the air. The eyes of the creature followed her up, and Anya took a deep breath.

"Activate Aura weapon" she whispered. Her wings began to darken to a deep grey, the colour beginning from two small dark grey circles beneath the skin of her shoulders. She spread her feathers out, splaying each wing to its full length on either side of her, maintaining a little flapping to keep herself balanced, hovering in the otherwise still air. Shadows began to form a collective dark ball under each wing, floating slowly from the darker parts of the arena. Shadows from every shaded point in the arena, from the Novad and even Anyas own shadow on the wall behind her danced through the air and joined the collecting masses beneath her wings. They shifted and writhed together to form small, sharp, dagger shaped points. Anya waited a few seconds, and as if on cue, the Novad began to open the top right segment of its chest, revealing part of its molten golden core.

The core was the secret to destroying the Novad creatures. It was a kind of self charging battery for them, providing the energy for it to destroy and wreak havoc with an all manner of deadly long distance weapons, without having to move from its landing point. Unfortunately for the Novad, although the core was protected by the outer armour of the creature, the Novad had to open the armour to attack. Newer models had received a new defence mechanism to defend the core, but thankfully this one seemed to not have been fitted with the new defence.

Anya took another deep breath and manoeuvred herself slightly so that she was now directly facing the open cavity, and the small cylindrical weapon that was pointed directly at her. She narrowed her eyes in concentration and once she was sure of her target, flapped her wings forwards forcefully, aiming as carefully as she could at the core. She was propelled backwards and the shadows that had collected beneath her wings shot forward, a small number bouncing off the main armour of the Novad as though they were mere feathers, instead of the piercingly sharp shadow daggers that they were. Most of the shadow blades made it into the core through the segment gap and pierced into it, causing sparks as some of the golden fluid encased within it leaked out, immediately damaging the weapons in the revealed segment. Anya grinned and began to float gently to the ground as she watched the lights within the Novads' eyes flicker, and then go out completely. She sighed with relief at the relative ease of this test, especially since she had expected something far tougher for a pony of her age. She smiled up at the scientist ponies who were watching from a protected observation chamber high above her. Anya began trotting happily towards the small metal door she had come in through, embedded deeply into the immensely high, and extremely reinforced walls of the arena. She would have flown out if it wasn't for the extra reinforced glass ceiling, which was the only source of light the arena offered.

A familiar whirring sound sliced through the peaceful air and fear took a hold of Anya as she stopped her in her tracks, and slowly turned her head to gaze back at the Novad, who's eyes had begun to glow once again. The lower left segment of the chest of the Novad began to creep open slowly.

Up in the observation chamber, Pegasus trainer Rainbow Dash grinned at the stunned faces of the scientist ponies around her, and then turned away from the control panel and back to the arena. She walked slowly, ignoring the stunned silence around her, right up to the thick window, and looked down at one of her most promising students.

"Now we'll see what she's really made of." she grinned with a determined glint in her eye.


	2. Chapter 2

Anya was sprinting. Round and round the arena she ran, occasionally zig-zagging as beams of white-hot energy send sand into the air as it collided with the floor. Sand was sent flying into the air, and Anya had to squint to keep it our of her eyes. She flexed her wings and rose a few feet into the air, but a beam struck the wall behind her, inches away from her wing, so she quickly lowered herself and continued to run.

Sweat was running down her flanks and she could feel her legs beginning to shake at every step; despite her stores of adrenaline, she was exhausting herself, and then she'd be caught by the beams easily. As more sand flew into the air, Anya had her idea.

She flicked her white tail up into the air, and then brought it down behind her, sweeping along the floor. At the same time, she turned around, again and again until she was running in circles, sand flying everywhere, creating a huge screen.

The Novad fired blindly into the cloud and then paused as it waited for the cloud to clear. It kept its lazer gun trained on the spot, loaded, and ready to kill. When the sand finally settled, Anya was no longer there. She was flying above the turret of the Novad, and preparing her shadow blades under her wings once again.

She waited until the Novad began to turn its head, and then she fired, straight at the joining part of the head. The blades found their way into the welding that connected the two and the welding melted, detaching the two.

Now blind, the Novad fired blindly in circles, almost in fear. Anya gulped in air and dived head first into the Novad. She landed on a large pile of ammunition casings, right beside the core. Her back began to ache. The small disks in her back were throbbing, so Anya knew she had to act fast. She spread her wings out and shadows dragged themselves from every corner of the Novad's dusty interior, almost knocking her over. She aimed and fired at point blanc range, hitting and destroying the casing of the core in front of her.

The molten centre of the core began to gush out of its glass casing and Anya took to the skies to avoid its scolding heat. She flew up and out of the Novad's neck and spiralled to the ground. She gasped and panted on shaking legs as the metal creatures' eyes dimmed, and then went out. It did not stir again, and Anya turned and wearily walked back towards the door.


	3. Chapter 3

The solid metal door closed slowly, creaking as it re-filled its frame. Rainbow dash came speeding down a set of stairs that lead up to the observation chamber, and skidded to a halt in front of Anya. Rainbow Dash slapped Anya roughly on the back and Anya tried not to wince as Rainbows' hoof made contact with her sore disks. Her legs wobbled as Rainbow jumped and bounced in circles around her.  
"Oh, yeah! That was awesome, Anya! You know, I had my doubts about you when you first came here but wow! You're well on the way to being as awesome as me!" She laughed, wrapping a foreleg around Anya's shoulders and pulling her into her shoulder. "Maybe not AS awesome, but pretty close." She winked teasingly.

Several ponies were hurriedly running down the same steps Rainbow had just run down.  
"Miss Anya needs medical assistance!" the young colt in the middle shouted, holding a clipboard aloft with his horn. He stopped in front of Rainbow Dash and glared at her. "You shouldn't have pushed her so hard, its a miracle she survived!" He said angrily.

Rainbow Dash lifted her foreleg and paced towards him. "What did you say to me? Nerds like you don't know anything about the strength it takes to be an Artemis Pegasus. It takes guts! Something they have to prove!" She snarled, her eyebrows pointed downwards in anger. Behind them, Anya collapsed under her shaking legs and the two earth ponies that had accompanied the angry colt helped her back up, and walked her slowly away from the argument, and into the medical wing. Anya lay down carefully on a soft blue sheeted bed, on her front so that the pain in her wings and back wouldn't be made more intense by the extra pressure of her body. The door burst open again and the angry colt walked through.

"My patient needs me, Miss Dash. You'll have to continue this argument with yourself!" he snapped back into the corridor. He walked briskly towards the bed, shaking his head sadly and re-examining the chart. "Miss Anya? Can you give me a scale from 1-10 as to the pain you're feeling in your wings? 10 being the worst, of course." He said gently. Anya grunted and shifted her head a little to look up at him.  
"5" she whispered.  
The colt nodded. "And your back? Specifically your Auralizers?" he asked.  
"7" she replied and the colt nodded more quickly.

"Miss Anya you have lost a small part of your wing, we believe part of the core splashed onto it and dissolved a few feathers. We can fix them of course, but we'll have to fix your Auralizers before we move onto the wings. I promise we will do everything we can." He said gently, and nodded at the two earth ponies who trotted behind a curtain and began moving trays and preparing equipment. The doctor used his horn to lower the clipboard onto the end of the bed, and then pointed it to a couple of hooks over what appeared to be his desk. A white coat and face mask flew across the room and he promptly donned the items.

At the same time the two earth ponies trotted out from behind the curtain, both dressed similarly and one pushing a trolley with an all manner of equipment rattling and rolling around on top of it.  
"Hey, doc?" Anya asked softly.  
"Yes Miss Anya?" the doctor said, glancing over the prepared equipment.  
"Is this going to hurt?"

The doctor paused and thought for a moment before nodding slowly, a sad look in his eye.  
"Then I guess you'd better get on with it" Anya smiled before burying her head in the soft pillow. The doctor smiled softly behind his mask, considering how similar to her coach she was. He nodded at each of his earth pony nurses and they moved to either side of the young Pegasus, and held down her wings. Anya grunted loudly, but it was muffled by the pillow. The doctor glanced at her left wing. He knew it was more than a few feathers, but thanks to the regenerative properties of the implanted Auralizers, he was sure that the wing would heal perfectly within a few hours, provided he could fix the Auralizer discs. His horn glowed, and a scalpel hovered up from the small metal tray and he took a deep breath before allowing it to move over the discs.


	4. Chapter 4

Rainbow Dash marched purposefully through the academy's corridors towards Twilight's chambers. The two golden armour clad guards standing on either side of the double door barely had time to open the doors for her before she had barged her way in.  
"TWILIGHT!" She shouted loudly.  
The room was huge, about twice the size of Twilights' old home back at the library. The layout was very much the same inside though; the lower floor with a desk piled high with paper and quills, the second level with a small room for the bathroom and next door Twilights' bedroom. All wall space on both floors was taken up with bookshelves piled high with books, some crammed in horizontally on top of vertical books that are already so densely packed it would take incredible strength to pull them out. There were also books, papers and quills littering the floor as well.  
Rainbow Dash picked her way through the mess, before deciding to fly instead. Twilights' head appeared over the wooden balcony of the second floor and she looked down at her friend.  
"What can I do for you, Rainbow Dash?" she called down with a smile. Rainbow Dash shook her head.  
"One of mine. She's amazing. I really think that she's ready. I want you to come down and view the tapes so you can tell everyone else that I'm right!" Rainbow Dash called up. Twilight shook her head but turned to go down the stairs.  
"You know you can fly, right?" Rainbow Dash chuckled.  
Twilight glared at her as she trotted carefully down the stairs, her horn glowing to clean a pathway through the chaos.

"Why is everything on the floor anyway, Twi?" Rainbow Dash asked as Twilight cleared a larger path to allow her friend to land.  
"Have you heard of gravity, Rainbow Dash?" Twilight grinned evilly. Rainbow Dash paused and then stared at her old friend.  
"HEY!" she said loudly, beginning to laugh. "I think you've been spending too much time with me Twi, you're getting all cynical like me" She managed to get out between laughs.  
Twilight smiled at her friend and nodded. "So about this girl of yours...?" she asked as the two began to walk out of the room, the guards closing the doors behind them.  
"Oh yeah!" Rainbow Dash beamed in pride "She's great! Really Twi, you're gonna love her! She's tough, and strong, and hard as rocks! But she's got a good brain on her too though, we tried her out on the modified version just now and.."  
"YOU PUT A STUDENT AGAINST A MOD?" Twilight shouted in shock.  
Rainbow Dash grinned. "I knew she could handle it, and I was right there, if she wasn't coping I'd have shut the whole thing down immediately, I swear, but she bested it! In one of the shortest times yet! I'm telling you, Twi, this is the next girl from my section. I'm putting her forward."  
Twilight shook her head gently and continued to walk forward. She knew better than to try to talk Rainbow Dash out of putting forward a nominee. She turned Dash away from the training quarters and towards the reflection gardens.  
The gardens were a way of remembering those who had fallen in this horrible war. Twilight quickened her pace as Dash continued to go on about her nominees skills, hoping that she wouldn't notice where they were going until they got there.  
The two rounded a corner and came face to face with a long corridor, with no furnishings or windows, just a pair of double glass doors at the very end, with light shining through. Tree branches and leaves spanned over the glass, turning some of the light a beautiful green. They got half way down the corridor before Rainbow Dash realised where they were, and she stopped dead.  
"I'm not going in there." She whispered.  
"You need to. I ask it of all of the leaders, before they send forward a nominee, they must be one hundred percent positive that they are ready. You of all people know why." Twilight answered gently, before continuing to walk forward towards the door. She pressed a button on the wall and the doors opened gracefully, and sunlight flooded into the corridor, so bright that you could not see into the room, only the beautiful bright light. Twilight walked into the room and disappeared in the light. Rainbow Dash bit her lip and took a deep breath before walking shakily forwards. She passed through the door, and into the light. Her vision left her for a second, but then the garden came into focus.

Any person new to the garden would have thought that they had entered a forest, and in some ways they were right. Before them was a small clearing with a statue of a great warrior pony, complete with armour. He stood tall and proud, with one hoof on a small rock, in which was buried a flag pole with the Princess Celestias' symbol. Behind the statue was five pathways that led deep into the forest, but in different directions. Each pathway had a symbol engraved onto the ground and symbolised the different houses that made up the academy. Rainbow Dash stood beside Twilight and swallowed, before following Twilight onto the path that represented her house. A few trees into the path the monuments started. Small stone statuettes on top of plaques lined the pathway, one between each couple of trees. Each statuette was a perfect representation of the pony whose ashes rested beneath the plaque. Rainbow Dash tried to keep her head high but could not stop the tears from falling and landing on the ground. Each statuette was one of her students, that had fallen in the line of duty.

Each pony had been trained by her, nurtured by her, and had been put forward by her. The first loss had been a blow so severe Rainbow Dash had considered ending it herself, but in time this feeling was replaced by rage. Rainbow Dash hated the humans for what they were doing. The tears in her eyes began to dry up as this feeling returned to her. She strode forward, the memory of each of her students playing through in her mind. Eventually they came to the statuette that Rainbow Dash had been dreading. Her last student, Mirage. Rainbow Dash had put her hope into that colt, and he had certainly proved his loyalty, which is what all her students were known for. He had given his life to save his comrade, and Dash could not have asked for a more worthy hero, but as she looked down at his grave, the tears began to fall again. He was too young to leave the world, and he wasn't ready.

"_He's ready, I can feel it! Really Twi, he's ready, he's everything we need and more! I KNOW he's going to be amazing!" _

"Alright, Twi, I get it." Rainbow Dash whispered. She lifted a hoof and gently stroked the statuette of the grinning colt. "I won't make the same mistake twice." She whispered, more to the statuette than to Twilight. Rainbow Dash sat down in front of the statuette and her eyes glazed over.  
"I don't want to keep you from your royal duties, Twi" She said softly.  
Twilight nodded in understanding and began to walk away from the scene, back to the clearing. When she got to the statue of the soldier, she paused, and bent her head in a moments silence and remembrance. As she walked slowly back through the door that lead back to the garden, she left with knew purpose. No pony should have to go through something like this, and the war had already gone on for far too long. Twilight trotted down the corridor deep in thought.  
_I have to work harder. There must be a better way. _She thought as she made her way back to her chambers.


End file.
